Sellers were lurking this morning.

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As Homer (the Greek poet, not the cartoon dude) said, "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant."

Merrill (MER) couldn't catch a bid with the rest of the financials this morning. We flagged that on the Buzz out of the opening gate (it typically implies that sellers are lurking) and true to form, the stock has since slipped a finski (5%).

The caveat of the crowded "Long energy-short financials" bet?"According to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research's daily index, hedge funds were down 2.77% for the month to Wednesday. If that is sustained to the end of the month, it will make July the worst since the dotcom bubble burst in April 2000". FT

You can learn a lot just by watching. The WSJ reports that Chrysler faces a deadline of this Friday to refinance roughly $30 billion worth of paper at its credit subsidiary and they might end up paying 200bp above LIBOR.

No, you're a smushie! Keep SMH $26.5 on your radar as a multi-year level of lore in the semiconductor space.

There's typically one easy trade each session for those patient. The trick is to stay alert as we await it.

"According to Thomson data, Q2 earnings are down 17% year over year. Obviously, ex-financials the numbers appear notably better, up 7.7%. If you're going to look ex-financials you also need to look ex-energy, since their earnings growth will have negative repercussion for other sectors. Ex-energy and ex-financials earnings are up 2.8%."BTIG strategist Mike O'Rourke.

Ex-Pizza, I'm a svelte 175 lbs.

If you Google "Textbook bearish churn," you may well find a picture of as it migrates under Shanghai 3000.

Professor Ryan Krueger noted on today's Buzz that The DJ-AIG Commodity Index, right back to its 200-day moving average (+10% year-to-date).

"If I'm right about a multi-year secular uptrend driven by fundamentals," he scribed, "you don't get too many technical setups of this kind along the way. And when, not if, I'm wrong with trades I choose to be taken out with tight stops while maintaining a basket of core longs."

Just as the internet prophecy of global commerce came to fruition--albeit not without a dot.com crash first--I can't help wonder if the vision of globalization will follow the same script.

As Pete Moses of CAS said--and I agree--there will be profound opportunities on the other side of this period of socioeconomic malaise. They won't be traditional but the best opportunities never are.

Discipline is discipline, be it trading or a diet. You can trip but you mustn't fall.

Merrill. See it. And keep an eye on Mother Morgan (MS) (-3%), AIG (AIG) (-7%) and Citi (C) (-5%) while you're at it. I'm not involved in the group at present but the "funding" chatter continues to plague the sector.